Re: XY4 freezing in Win98

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Walter Jowers wrote:

> IMHO, running any anti-virus software full-time causes *way* more problems
> than it prevents. Unexplained crashes are the norm, and usually get blamed
> on Bill Gates.

Walter:

I agree in general, but: it is useful (at least in my operation, where I'm
dealing constantly with disks sent in by authors) to set parameters so that any
disk inserted into your floppy drive is automatically scanned. Then, too, Norton
Utilities Anti-Virus packages for various flavors of Windows can be set to
prevent you from saving a downloaded file to disk w/o an automatica virus scan.

This is how our network people have set things up here, anyway, after somebody
managed to download one of those files infected with one of those Word macro
viruses.

(And: you're a lot better off not using any Microsoft Mail packages. Most of the
Melissa-type viruses are set to prey on people using, I believe, Outlook. If you
use Netscape plus their own e-mail system, or Eudora, you have less to worry
about.)

Aside from that, I agree that these scan programs often are more trouble than
they're worth. In the original query to the list, i.e., the one he posted before
he figured out what the problem was, Paul Breeze mentioned that he had renamed
one of the editor.exe files. I have a hunch it was the existence of the _two_
editor.exe files that created the problem to begin with. My understanding is
(and I hope somebody will correct me if I am wrong) this: the scan program
compare the number of bytes in all the execurtable files it finds the day it
operates with those in the files the time it created its checklist. If it finds
a descrepancy, it barks. It is possible, therefore, that the presence of _two_
editor.exe files totally knocked it for a loop.

That said, I'm not sure it is wise to rename editor.exe. I believe I once saw a
caution against doing so in one of the XyWrite manuals or pamphlets from back in
the Xyquest/Bellarica days.

>
>
> If a person is all that worried about viruses, he'd probably have a happier
> computer life if he just ran a virus scan first thing in the morning and
> last thing before going home. Better yet, just scan any file you grab off
> the Internet before you open it.
>

Absolutely.

>
> Personally, I scan about once a week, and I have never found anything.
>

You know how to take care of business, my man!

>
> Walter Jowers, Nashville
> E-mail: walter.jowers@xxxxxxxx
> Biz website: http://www.nashscene.com/~housesense
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Fritz Casey-Leininger 
> To: 
> Sent: Friday, December 17, 1999 9:33 AM
> Subject: Re: XY4 freezing in Win98
>
> > This problem cropped up for me and at least one other person earlier this
> > fall. Both of us were running Win98 and McAfee Virus software. What
> > appeared to be a freeze up was a very long wait, several minutes sometimes
> > before Xy4 would come up. If McAfee Virus was not running the Xy4 load
> > happened quickly. Moreover, once Xy4 had been loaded once during a
> session
> > and then unloaded, if McAfee was reloaded, Xy4 could be started again
> > without delay.
> >
> > Don't know if this is a problem with other virus software.
> >
> > Fritz Casey-Leininger
> >
> > .At 10:04 AM 12/17/99 , you wrote:
> > >I've just reloaded XY4 on a Win98 compter (I have Xy3 and XYWin on the
> > >same computer) and when I try to start it, the system freezes. I've
> tried
> > >changing the name of the program to editor1.exe to avoid any conflict
> with
> > >XY3, and I've also tried starting from a DOS window where I set the path
> > >to \XY4 alone, again to avoid it seeing XY3. All to no avail. However
> > >the program will start if I boot up directly to DOS, and don't load
> > >windows. Does anybody have any idea what might be the cause of the
> problem?
> >

--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
212-666-1000 x7109 (phone) 212-316-3100 (fax)
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup